my views on the local news in Minnesota

October 2007

October 09, 2007

Then don't vote for Hillary. Better be sure that we don't adopt socialized medicine system, like they have in Canada. Because then if you have a brain tumor threatening your life, you may have to wait 8 months just to get a diagnosis. Never mind the wait for the treatment.

If you want to live, you go to the United States. At least as long as you can buy health care in the United States. You can't buy it in Canada.

October 03, 2007

If Critical Mass riders just wanted to celebrate bikes, they could refrain from serial law-breaking and ride at a time that doesn't provoke rush-hour drivers. But that won't do. Their antics are more about power -- "I'll make you wait while I ride by" -- and self-dramatization than making the world a better place.

Minneapolis authorities eventually will discover what parents learn when they allow petulant children to break the rules "just to keep the peace." You don't get peace. You just open the door to bigger trouble.

October 02, 2007

As part of the gearing up process for the 2008 Republican National Convention, citizen journalists are being recruited. WCCO reports:

On the cusp of a presidential election, and the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, there's a move in Minnesota to train an army of citizen journalists.

"We want to be able to harness the power of citizen journalists for the good of the United States," said Jason Barnett, Executive Director and Founder of The UpTake.

"Is the mainstream media really telling the stories that are important?" Barnett asked. "It's time for people to take it into their own hands. And we would like to provide an opportunity to train them so they can do media and do journalism in their own hands."

According to Barnett, he and his team plan on training 100 citizen journalists in anticipation of the RNC. His site is already breaking news.

On September 17, The UpTake uploaded video of Senator Norm Coleman talking to peace activists in front of his St. Paul home. The video spread quickly around the Internet, because Coleman spoke against one part of the fighting happening in Iraq, saying, "On the other hand we should not be in the middle of a civil war."

"The reason that was captured on tape, we had trained one of the peace activists how to run a camera," said Mike McIntee, Executive Producer for The UpTake. "What we want to train people is that you gotta be fair, gotta be honest, and gotta know how to tell a story."

The UpTake filters submissions from its trained citizen journalists. That makes it different from other sites which allow anyone to upload.

"When you go on YouTube, it's a crazy circus of video clips," according to Chuck Olsen, Citizen Journalist with The UpTake. "There's really no place you can go when you want to look at good political coverage, citizen coverage."

Last Friday, Olsen joined six other The UpTake citizen journalists to cover Critical Mass, a Minneapolis bike rally which became controversial after riders had a confrontation with Minneapolis Police in August.

They captured video of a Mercedes driving into the middle of the mass
of riders, and the riders yelling at each other to "Don't touch the
car."

"Nobody else has that on tape," said Olsen. "That's
because we had enough people in the ride to capture that we were able
to catch an event like that."

The UpTake will host its first
mass citizen journalism training session on October 27 in Apple Valley,
Minn. They're training journalists in Denver, Colo., as well, in
advance of the Democratic National Convention.

"We want to be a trusted source for citizen political journalism," said Barnett.

If you want to sign up but need training, you can attend "Introduction to Citizen Journalism," offered in partnership with WellstoneAction.